Only One Jew Left Alive in Vitebsk; 11,000 Jews Massacred in Ponievezh by Nazis

Submitting to requests by wives of German officials in the Nazi-occupied city of Vitebsk, Byelorussia, the Gestapo left one Jew in the city after killing thousands of others and deporting the remainder to unknown destinations, it was reported here today by Russian partisans returning from the Vitebsk area.

The Jew for whom the wives of the Nazi officials interceded with the Gestapo is a gynecologist. The women argued that it was in the interest of their health and their expected children that the Jewish doctor remain in the city where no other civilian doctors were available.

A Jew who, together with two Lithuanians, succeeded in escaping from the Nazis, today reported that the Germans massacred 11,000 in the town of Ponievezh, near, Kovno. “The town itself did not have eleven thousand Jewish residents, but the Nazis drove hundreds of Jews from the neighboring townships into Ponievezh in order to make the entire district ‘judenrein’ through one pogrom,” the Lithuanian Jew declared. He added that Catholic priests in Nazi-occupied Lithuania pleaded with the Gestapo to be allowed to take Jewish children under their care, but their appeals were ignored.